[122.03] Protostellar Envelopes: A Clue to the Initial Conditions of Star Formation

I.A.Bonnell, M.R.Bate (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge)

One of the major problems in star formation is to ascertain the
initial conditions from which collapse occurs.
Observations can tell us about the conditions in molecular clouds
where stars have formed
or about the conditions in clouds that haven't yet formed stars.
In the first case, any information about the initial conditions
has been lost whereas in the second case we do not know whether
stars will ever form in them and thus they may not be the appropriate
initial conditions.
We are investigating how the observable envelopes around young stellar
objects depend on the initial conditions for collapse. The aim
of this is to determine from what initial conditions star formation
occurs.